Hard Cheese
Hard Cheese was a middleweight robot from Liverpool that entered the Middleweight Championships held in Series 2 and 3 Robot Wars and the first series of Robot Wars Extreme. It won the Series 2 Middleweight Championship with ease, but the Series 3 championship was cancelled and replaced by an exhibition Middleweight Melee, which it fought in and lost, but retained the Middleweight title anyway. Hard Cheese also lost the Middleweight Championship in Extreme 1 after taking a few hits from eventual champion Typhoon. Hard Cheese was built and entered by Liverdyne Robotics, which also competed in the main competition of Series 5 with V.I.P.E.R. 01, having already failed to qualify with an earlier version of the machine named The Big Cheese (unrelated to Roger Plant's heavyweight). Design Hard Cheese was a yellow wedge-shaped robot themed and painted to resemble a slice of Swiss cheese, with a toy rat mascot named 'Verminator' mounted on top of it. Its preferred tactic was to use its wedge to tip other robots onto their backs or sides, however it did not have a self-righting mechanism throughout any of its appearances. In Series 2, Hard Cheese was armed with a pair of rear ramming spikes which could pierce and impale through other robots, which were joined in Series 3 by a spiked hammer/axe mounted at and facing the rear. For its appearance in Extreme 1, the hammer/axe was replaced with a four-toothed cutting disc resembling that of Pussycat, which was made out of stainless steel. Qualification Hard Cheese attended the qualifiers for the Fourth Wars, after the team's heavyweight V.I.P.E.R. 01 was forced to withdraw due to technical difficulties. Hard Cheese went on to fight V.I.P.E.R. 01's qualifier battles in its place. Despite the weight disadvantage, it fought against and defeated More Panda Monium in one battle, its opponent subsequently failing to qualify. However, Hard Cheese was also placed against Ming 2 in a separate battle, and lost after being flipped over and unable to self-right, with Ming 2 then qualifying for the main series. As a result, neither Hard Cheese nor V.I.P.E.R. 01 qualified for the main competition. Robot History Series 2 Hard Cheese fought in the Middleweight Championship, which consisted of a three-way melee with Series 1 competitor Wharthog and newcomer Doodlebug. Like the Featherweight and Lightweight championships, only a small portion of the fight was broadcast, but Hard Cheese was dominant, constantly ramming into Wharthog and Doodlebug and using its wedge to push them around. Both opponents were immobilised as a result of Hard Cheese's attacks, with Hard Cheese eventually attacking the House Robots and compelling Dead Metal to knock 'Verminator' off its wedge, which was promptly pushed onto the Flame Pit by Shunt. Still, Hard Cheese won the match, and a heavily-bandaged 'Verminator' was reunited with the robot when it was declared the first official Middleweight Champion. Series 3 As defending Middleweight champion, Hard Cheese returned for the Series 3 Middleweight Championship. However, along with all other weight-class championships, the championship was cancelled, so it instead fought in the Middleweight Melee, an exhibition match against A-Kill, Grinder, Ripper's Revenge and American entrant (and technically lightweight competitor) Tentoumushi. Hard Cheese immediately steered towards Ripper's Revenge, attacking it with its hammer, before pushing Tentoumushi back as it tried to get its smothering shell into action. Hard Cheese attacked Ripper's Revenge again before Tentoumushi rode up its wedge, covering it with its shell and appearing to immobilise it as a result of Hard Cheese's battery going flat, despite the hammer still working. 'Verminator' also appeared to have been knocked off while the cameras focused on A-Kill pushing Grinder into Shunt, and remained lying on the arena floor for the remainder of the battle. Sir Killalot then lifted Hard Cheese aloft and spun it around with his lance, before proceeding to drive up and down its wedge numerous times. It was eventually left on the Flame Pit, and had its armour sliced into by Dead Metal and Matilda as the other House Robots attacked the surviving competitors. The battle ended with joint victory for A-Kill and Tentoumushi, but as a new Middleweight Champion had been officially declared by the Championship, the Middleweight trophy was merely given to the incumbent Champion Hard Cheese. Hard Cheese had also previously been due to compete in the War of Independence, which was aired as part of the International League Championship, where it would have fought Tentoumushi again. However, it was replaced with A-Kill due to the producers wanting to give the lightweight American a fairer fight. Extreme 1 With its new disc, Hard Cheese entered the Middleweight Championship in the first series of Extreme, and was placed up against Typhoon, Genesis, Mammoth, Zap and Doom. Hard Cheese stayed out of the action at the start of the battle, whilst Typhoon spun around and caused minor damage to most of the other competitors, eventually breaking one of Mammoth's legs clean off. Hard Cheese then attacked Genesis, ramming it across a short distance, before Typhoon came in and spun Genesis away. Typhoon hit Hard Cheese, who initially resisted this attack and attempted to cut into Typhoon's body, but only caused a few scratches with its saw. Eventually, another few attacks from Typhoon sent Hard Cheese spinning away and left large slices in its side, also causing the robot to lose drive on one side. Eventually, after Genesis, Mammoth and Zap were all counted out and flipped by the Floor Flipper, Hard Cheese broke down completely right after Doom became immobilised, with both robots being flung by the Floor Flipper at the same time. Hard Cheese landed on its back, with Typhoon winning the battle and the Middleweight Championship. Results |} Wins/Losses *Wins: 1 *Losses: 2 Series Record Honours Trivia SpacedRobots.jpg|Hard Cheese (far left) in Spaced "Crushtacen".png|Hard Cheese (bottom left) makes an appearance in Series 5 *Hard Cheese was the only competitor robot from Merseyside to ever win a battle. *Hard Cheese had a brief cameo on the sitcom Spaced in the episode "Mettle." *Hard Cheese made a cameo appearance in Series 5, appearing in the bottom left of the pits in the scene where the awards were being shown. Category:Middleweights Category:Middleweight Champions Category:UK Series competitors Category:Robots from Merseyside Category:Robots with more Losses than Wins Category:Robots with Spiked Axes/Picks Category:Robots with Spikes Category:Robots with Cutting Discs Category:Robots with Mascots Category:Food Based Robots Category:Robots which debuted in Series 2 Category:Robots with cameo appearances in Series 4 Category:Robots with cameo appearances in Series 6 Category:Robots with cameo appearances in Extreme Warriors Season 1 Category:Robots with cameo appearances in Dutch Robot Wars: Series 2 Category:Robots with cameo appearances in German Robot Wars Category:Robots with cameo appearances in Series 5